


Darcy's Slow Burn

by Phlinting



Series: Slow Burn [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:03:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7699282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phlinting/pseuds/Phlinting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where identifying your perfect match is as effortless as saying hello, finding love should be easy, right? Darcy Lewis already knows that even the easy stuff can be really, <em>really<em> complicated, but did it have to be <em>this<em> confusing?</em></em></em></em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Darcy's Slow Burn

**Author's Note:**

> In this world I've tweaked the soulmate AU just a little. Instead of being born with their soulmate's words, the first words burn onto their skin the moment they meet. Some report this as a joyous, tingly feeling full of romance and imaginary music. Others, report it as a horrible, screeching pain. Guess which category our complicated, sexy, foulmouthed Darcy falls in... 
> 
>  
> 
> **(Rated M for language and mentions of possible suicide) ******

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Darcy Lewis grumbled loudly at the TV, "there is no way it happens like that!"

"Sure it does," Jane said, holding up her arm to proudly display the tattoo that had burned onto her skin the moment Thor had spoken his first words to her. 

"I was there, Janey. I saw the pain on your face when they appeared. There was nothing  _orgasmic_ about it." The idiot woman on the TV was still smiling. "It doesn't happen like that in real life and you know it."

Jane shrugged slightly, conceding the point. Thor had been yelling drunkenly, the wind had been violently whipping around them, and they'd barely been able to see in the swirling sand and dim lighting, but Jane's scream of agony had cut through all of it.

Even Thor had held his arm and growled in pain when Jane's words had written onto his skin. 

"It probably has something to do with the whole"—Jane waved a hand in the air dismissively—"different-planets-of-origin thing."

Darcy raised an eyebrow. Jane's soul words weren't even in English, the tattoo having apparently defaulted to Thor's Asgardian language instead of using the All Speak to translate, so she might have a tiny point.

"And besides," Jane said, lifting her glass to her lips before realizing it was empty, "I don't remember the pain. Only the"—she wrinkled her nose as if searching for an elusive word—" _joy_ of finding my soulmate."

Except that Jane's soulmate had left the planet three days later, promising that he would come back but he never had. It had been months since he'd promised to return quickly. Yep. There was the perfect example of soulmates...

Darcy didn't bother pointing that part out to Jane. The woman wanted to hold onto her illusions and as her best friend Darcy would let her. She'd also be there when Jane inevitably gave up hope and tried to move on with her life.

~*~

Steve stared at the words on his arm. Nobody had been able to explain why they hadn't faded to the ghostly silvery lines that usually followed the death of a soulmate. Bucky had only been gone a few days when Steve had ditched the plane into the ice, and even if one ignored the fact that he'd been frozen for seven decades, it had been months since he'd woken up in a brand new world.

The words should have faded by now. 

Steve went back to hitting the punching bag in front of him, using the physical exertion to burn off the anger within him. He sensed, rather than saw, Fury enter the gym and stand behind him, but the memories that played through his mind took priority.

Everything he'd been able to find on the Internet—and how lucky were modern people that they had the information of the world right at their fingertips?—suggested that nothing had changed while he'd been "asleep." A person's soul words simply faded within a few weeks of that soulmate's death. Some described it as a spiritual experience, a type of "letting go" that helped them to grieve, but most people Steve had known had likened it to having their loved one torn away from them again.

He'd seen it too many times during the war to think of it as anything but a raw, heartless indignity inflicted on people who were already suffering. He had no idea how the soul words "system" had come about, but he'd never viewed it as a gift from the gods. It felt too cruel to be anything other than punishment for daring to love another.

Annoyed that Fury seemed content just to wait and watch him work his way through punching bags, Steve took a step back, and then started to unwrap the tape around his knuckles.

A few minutes later he left the gym with a file folder of information, a new mission, and even more anger than he could ever remember feeling. 

~*~

"Darce!" Jane called urgently, waving Darcy over to the small television in the corner.

"Holy crap!" Not exactly an original reaction for one Darcy Lewis, but definitely situation appropriate.

"He's here!" Jane said, apparently ignoring the fact that her soulmate was on planet Earth to fight off a fucking alien invasion. Yeah, because life wasn't complicated...like,  _at all_ .

"I need to go," Jane said, spinning in a circle as if she could somehow organize her own life enough to actually catch a plane without Darcy's help.

Darcy reached for her boss's hand, trying to ground her and stop the manic reaction to seeing her soulmate on TV. "Janey, did you miss the part where he's fighting freaking aliens?"

The TV showed an explosion on screen, huge chunks of debris flying at the camera before losing the picture and switching to another view.

Jane rubbed a hand over the soul words on her skin. "He'll come for you once the fighting is done," Darcy assured her.

But the Asgardian asshat didn't.

Which is how, three weeks later, Darcy ended up picking her way through the half-cleared ruins of New York, entering the phallic monstrosity known as Stark Tower, and demanding an audience with aforementioned asshat.

What she got was Captain Freaking America.

"Where the fuck is Thor?" she asked the moment she realized the guy was alone. Captain America's eyes widened, and yeah, okay, maybe she'd forgotten to be polite to a National Hero who'd now saved the world at least twice, but in her defense she'd been expecting to rip strips off Thor, not have the Norse "god" hide behind The Star-spangled Man with a Plan.

But instead of growling back at her or lecturing her for her disrespect—all of which she acknowledged she thoroughly deserved—Captain America nodded, turned toward the reception desk, said a few quiet words to the woman behind it, and the turned on his heel and left.

Yeah, that did not bode well for her future, especially when a large hand landed on her shoulder and a deep chuckle reached her ear. "I cannot believe you got away with that."

Darcy carefully looked over her shoulder at the blond, buff guy with incredible shoulders and nearly swooned with a type of terror-slash-adoration when she recognized him and the red-headed woman beside him. She didn't know their names but they'd both featured heavily in the endless broadcasts and Internet articles and memes of what was now known as the Battle of New York.

"Um..." she said, trying to find her voice and barely managing a squeaky "Where's Thor?"

"He left," the woman said in a tone that told Darcy absolutely nothing. 

The guy grinned, far more relaxed than the scary woman beside him. "As much as we love dealing with Thor's rabid fans"—Darcy narrowed her eyes at him, forgetting for a moment that this guy fought off hundreds of aliens  _and won_ —"you, Miss Lewis, don't fit the stereotype."

And yeah, okay, she was beginning to regret giving her real name at the front desk when she'd demanded to see Thor.

"Thor's soulmate," she said, stuttering the words just a little—okay a lot, but in her defense the woman the Internet was calling the Black Widow was fucking scary.

"You're Thor's soulmate?" the man asked with an eyebrow raised skeptically. 

"That's a new one," the Black Widow added with a smirk that scared the ever living fuck out of Darcy. 

And yeah, maybe she'd intimated (okay, outright lied) that she  _was_ Thor's soulmate to the girl on the reception desk, but it was only so she could get past the first corporate line of defense and talk to someone who could get her in to see the big blond asshat. It had worked, sort of, but right now Darcy was wondering if it had been worth it. The Black Widow and her hunky friend were starting to freak her out and her over-the-top imagination was doing the rest. 

( _Please don't kill me_ .) Tempting, but nope, she wasn't going to say that out loud. There was no sense in giving the assassin twins ideas now.

"Not me," Darcy said quickly, her voice tight now with fear. "My boss, Jane Foster. She's Thor's soulmate. She's..." Darcy gulped in a quick breath, a little bit surprised by her reaction. She tried to shove down the tears that were threatening to embarrass her right here in the swanky foyer of Stark Tower. She ground her teeth together and dug deep for her resolve. Jane deserved so much more than Thor's bullshit. "Thor said he'd come back for her and he didn't, and then"—she fluttered her hands toward the windows to indicate the destruction that these two people undoubtedly knew about—"that happened and then he  _still_ didn't come for her. She's... She's not..." Darcy swallowed and grabbed ahold of the fury that she'd been carrying for the past couple weeks. "Jane at least deserves an explanation."

"She does," the guy agreed easily, "but we have no way of contacting Thor. He's off world. We don't know when he'll be back."

And Darcy believed him. There was something genuine about the guy's annoyance. 

"Can you do me a favor?" Darcy asked. The guy raised an eyebrow. "If Thor does come back, can you kick his ass for me?"

The guy nodded. "Ma'am," he said with a soft, quirky smile, "it would be my genuine pleasure."

~*~

Steve stared in disbelief at the words that had burned onto his skin. How the hell was this possible? The woman had said she was Thor's soulmate. How could she be Steve's as well?

At least he'd realized before he'd blurted out ill-considered words that would permanently scar her too. Steve already had a soulmate. Bucky was the love of his life and the last thing Steve needed was to get into a pissing contest with a Norse god over a woman that Steve didn't want or need in his life anyway. 

He traced a finger over Bucky's words and then read Darcy's again. Steve laughed softly at the swear word now tattooed permanently into his skin. The girl had a foul mouth and a hot temper. 

Bucky would have adored her.

~*~

Thor eventually did come back. He even saved Jane from some sort of red-swirly danger and took her home to meet his parents. It left Darcy kind of twiddling her thumbs since Science! didn't happen without Dr. Foster or Dr. Selvig, and since one was off the planet and the other off his rocker, Darcy had plenty of time to appreciate the emptiness of her own life. (And pants. She had a new gratitude for the fabric designed to cover the legs of scientists old enough to be her father. Seriously, pants, a very important part of the "I'm not an insane scientist" message.) 

Thankfully Thor and Jane arrived just in time to thwart another alien invasion (and so did Eric's pants) and so the world was saved again, this time from a different set of alien asshats. (What is it with aliens all being invasion-y jerks?) 

Thor went home, again. Jane went into depression, again. Darcy considered contacting the Avengers again, and this time maybe asking Captain America  _and_ the Black Widow and maybe even the big green dude to help sexy-shoulders guy beat the snot out of the Asgardian  _wanker._ (And yay, time in London was doing wonders for her cuss words vocabulary.) But then said wanker returned this time  _as promised_ , so he was almost totally forgiven.

"Oh, by the way, big guy," Darcy said after one too many celebration margaritas, "you might want to avoid Black Widow's friend, the blond guy with incredible shoulders."

"Hawkeye?" Thor asked with a wide smile. "Why would I need to avoid a friend of such integrity and valor?"

"Because I...um...asked him to maybe...um...kick your ass when you didn't drop by to see Jane that time when you visited New York."

Jane's eyes widened with her surprise. "You asked one of the Avengers to kick my soulmate's ass?  _After_ they saved the world from an alien invasion?"

Darcy pursed her lips but couldn't really find a reason to regret her actions—even if her plan never had come to fruition. "I did," she confessed without an ounce of remorse.

Jane's crash-tackle hug was unexpected but quite welcome. "Thanks," she said, smiling brightly but unable to hide how much she was affected by the alcohol. "You're a good friend, Darce. The best."

"I know," Darcy said, too drunk to bother with modesty.

~*~

Unsure what to do with himself after the Chitauri invasion, Steve joined SHIELD, mainly because Peggy had been a founding member. But the world had changed so much and even working with people who knew him and understood his background, he never quite felt comfortable.

In between assignments he decided to take Tony up on his offer to visit him in New York. Brooklyn wasn't like anything Steve remembered, but wandering around the old neighborhood was both enlightening and kind of depressing.

It's the only excuse he had for not really watching where he was going. He stepped out of the elevator on the science labs level and nearly knocked over a woman who'd been hurrying past.

"Sorry miss," he said, reaching for her arm so that she didn't fall over, "I didn't see you there."

The woman stared up at him, her familiar blue eyes giving him the once over—and how many fucking times had he dreamed about Thor's soulmate since he'd met her that one brief time?—before she pulled away and grabbed her arm.

"Holy fucking, fuck,  _fuck_ ," she exclaimed, holding her arm as if he'd burned her where he'd touched. It took another half a second to realize that was pretty much what he'd done. He hadn't spoken that first time for this very reason. But thanks to a random accident right now his first words were burning themselves onto her arm.

Fuck.

She was Thor's soulmate and Steve had already loved and lost the only person he'd ever wanted. "This can't be happening," he said tiredly, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"Not happening?" the woman asked hysterically. "Trust me, it fucking is!"

~*~

It fucking hurt!

It was nothing like the movies. There was no rising music, no smoldering looks, no exchange of sexy grins or leaping into her soulmate's arms. There was, however, a shitload of pain, a double dose of rising hysteria, and a hell of a lot of screaming. 

Enough, even, to bring Tony Stark out of his lab.

Who the fuck thought this shit was romantic?

"Science minion," Tony said amiably, "what did you do to get our very own Spangles swearing like that?"

Maybe it was just the pain messing with her head, but Darcy could have sworn that Tony sounded kind of impressed.

"Nothing," Steve growled between his clenched teeth. "It's a private matter, Tony. Go back to your lab."

"Wow," Tony said, this time nodding his approval at Darcy. "Now I have to stay. Got to protect my science minion—even from you, Cap."

Captain America looked seriously unimpressed. In fact he seemed like he might be on the verge of one huge, kick-the-walls-down tantrum. But then he took a deep breath, moved a step back, apologized for the commotion, and then turned and left.

Darcy stood in the middle of the hallway and watched her soulmate walk away.

"Well that was fun," Tony quipped, hands in his pockets as he stood shoulder to shoulder beside Darcy. "Want to explain what it was all about?"

"Not really," Darcy said, rubbing her arm where Captain America's first words were now permanently inscribed on her skin. "But maybe you could tell me my soulmate's actual name."

~*~

Steve was so fucking done with this world.

Nothing fit, nothing tasted right, nothing made any fucking sense. Everyone he knew was dead, or dying, or suffering dementia so badly that most days she didn't even recognize him any more.

And he'd somehow gone from an advertising prop for war bonds, to an infallible hero, beloved and worshipped by millions, a paragon of what religious groups were calling traditional virtue and family values.

Steve traced a finger over Bucky's soul words. "Wouldn't they be surprised, Buck, to meet Steve Rogers, ordinary guy?" Somehow he'd been  _blessed_ (and yeah, he wasn't quite sure that was the word he wanted to use) with two soulmates—one a man in a time when same-sex relationships had been illegal, and one who already belonged to a prince from another planet.

A laugh escaped him, but there was no mirth, no warmth. All he'd ever wanted was to protect people. He'd never wanted or needed accolades. He didn't want to be a shining example of anything. And he couldn't be. 

Living up to the Captain America image was impossible. No human—enhanced or not—could ever do it.

The soft knock on his door was annoying. Tony had told him this apartment was his. He could stay, he could go, he could redecorate if he wanted, but the place was his private sanctuary, and right now he needed that more than he needed to speak to anyone.

He slid down the wall, rested his elbows on his bent knees, and then dropped his head forward to rest on his hands.

He closed his eyes and ignored the second knock and the third.

~*~

Darcy was still staring at the words on her arm when Jane found her. No doubt Tony had sent her out to collect Darcy. The guy often acted like an asshole, but having lived and worked in the same tower for a few months now, Darcy was beginning to realize that under all that showy glitz and manic energy was a man who truly cared for the people around him. 

"Darce?" Jane asked warily, approaching her the same way one might approach an injured animal.

"I met my soulmate," she said, still trying to understand what had gone wrong.

Jane looked around the area as if she might have missed some guy hanging around. "Where is he?"

"He..." Darcy hesitated because...what the fuck? Her soulmate was Captain America and the moment they'd exchanged words he'd gotten angry and run away? "Some hero," she muttered under her breath. Why would he do that? Why would he reject her outright without even knowing her...like...at all?

"He left?" Jane asked sounding angrier than any woman who'd waited months for her own soulmate to come back to her actually had a right to be. Then again, Thor hadn't scampered away from their very first meeting.

"Oh, god," Darcy said, grabbing Jane's hand in a crushing grip. "I said..." She blushed. Everyone who knew her knew she had a foul mouth but she'd just sworn at Captain America, paragon of virtue and virginity. Fuck! "What I said...it wasn't..."—she winced using almost her entire body—"it wasn't very nice."

Jane didn't bother asking. She knew Darcy well enough to get the gist. "Oh," Jane said, glancing over her shoulder as if Darcy's lost soulmate might be standing behind her. "I'm sure he'll forgive you. You're soulmates. Surely he'll understand."

"He's Captain Freaking America, Jane!" 

"Oh," she said, very unhelpfully considering that Darcy needed reassurance not agreement right now. (And yes, she did understand that she was being contrary, damn it!)

"Miss Lewis, Sir is requesting that you meet him out the front of Captain Rogers' quarters. He wishes to override the locking mechanism and he feels that having the captain's soulmate with him might negate any ill feelings toward him."

"What the every loving fuck, J? The man ran off. He left me and he locked himself in his room. He wants to be alone, so leave the guy alone for heaven's sake."

"It is possible that you are correct, Miss Lewis," the AI said sounding vaguely disapproving. "But perhaps Captain Rogers won't mind being reminded right now that his friends care for him."

That caught her attention. "What aren't you telling me, J?" Darcy asked as she bolted toward the elevator.

"Captain Rogers has been spending increasingly long amounts of time alone. Dr. Banner and Sir have been keeping an eye on him, but with his unexpected reaction to you, their concern for his safety has increased exponentially."

"You're saying Captain America is suicidal?" Jane asked hurriedly as she joined Darcy in the elevator.

"That conclusion is unlikely, but between his PTSD symptoms and increasing levels of voluntary isolation it cannot be conclusively ruled out."

The elevator stopped on Steve's floor and JARVIS directed them to his apartment. Tony was waiting for them, his face impassive even though his worry was quite clear.

"Thank god," Tony said, moving quickly toward Darcy. He grabbed her arm and hurried her to the door. "JARVIS, you can override the lock on Cap's door now."

"Thanks, J," Darcy whispered as the door unlocked. She waited nervously as Tony turned the handle and opened the door slowly.

"Steve, we're...um...we're coming in. Hope you're decent."

The apartment was eerily quiet, so the voice that came from behind the door startled them both. "What are you doing, Tony?" Steve asked in a tired voice. "The door was locked for a reason."

"Just...you know...being neighborly. Checking to make sure you're okay."

Steve rolled his eyes, but he didn't look at Darcy at all.

"As you can see, I'm fine. You can leave now."

"But I brought your soulmate with me," Tony said, sounding as out of his depth as Darcy felt. It was obvious that Steve wanted to be alone. Yeah, this was a really bad idea.

"You brought Thor's soulmate with you," Steve said, not looking at any of them as he hauled himself off the floor and turned toward what Darcy assumed was the bedroom. Darcy was seriously considering just leaving the guy alone—he was a grown man and capable of making his own choices, even bad ones—when the meaning of his words finally hit her.

"Wait a minute, asshole," she said, getting good and mad at the dismissive and mean tone of his words about Jane. "You don't get to insult my best friend and walk out of the damn room."

"I should go," Jane said, clearly wanting to avoid a confrontation, but Darcy was beyond angry now. She had no idea why Steve had rejected her—okay, maybe a little bit of an idea—but that was no reason for him to snark at Jane. She'd done nothing wrong.

"No, Janey," Darcy said through clenched teeth. "Captain America owes you a fucking apology."

Steve turned and looked at her for the first time since his soul words had burned into her skin. "How do I owe her an apology?"

Darcy was mad enough to fucking tell him in very colorful language when Tony stepped in between them. "Steve, Jane is Thor's soulmate."

"Jane?" he asked as if he didn't fucking know who the hell that was. "You said your name was Darcy."

"My name is Darcy!" Was it just her, or were they talking in fucking circles? "What the fuck is going on?"

Steve froze for a moment and Darcy wondered if maybe this was the part where he berated her for staining his skin with her horrible cuss words, so she was even more shocked when he stepped a little closer and gave her a worried frown. "You're not Thor's soulmate?" 

"Of course not," she said indignantly until she remembered that today was not the first time she'd spoken to him. "Oh, hell." She glanced at Jane, gave her a small smile, and shrugged just a tiny bit. "I...um...might have said that when I came to talk to Thor after the Chitauri invasion." She glanced between her best friend's amused face and Steve's shocked one. "But it was only so they'd take me seriously."

"But you're  _not_ Thor's soulmate?" Steve asked again, this time his tone far more hopeful.

"No," Darcy said as a tiny bit of excitement curled in her belly, "but I'm pretty sure I'm yours." She held up her arm for him to see the words that had caused them both so much pain—both literally and figuratively. "Can we maybe start over?"

Steve grinned and took a step closer. "I would very much like that." He held his hand out to shake. "Hi, I'm Steve Rogers."

THE END


End file.
